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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Dos Equis on September 04, 2009, 01:37:11 PM
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They're not releasing the logs of prior visitors. What happened to the "transparency" that Obama campaigned on?
White House to release logs after settlement interest group
Posted: September 4th, 2009 11:04 AM ET
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama plans to announce Friday that the White House will release its future visitor logs on a regular basis, two administration officials said.
The announcement follows a legal settlement with the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which had sued the administration for release of visitor logs, the group announced on its Web site.
Since taking office, the president has been criticized for refusing to release some of the logs, including those relating to health care and coal company executives.
The new policy will apply to visitor logs created after September 15 — not to previous visitor logs, according to an administration statement outlining the policy that CREW posted on its Web site. The future logs will be released 90 to 120 days after the meetings, and there are some exceptions.
In his announcement Friday, the president plans to say, "For the first time in history, records of White House visitors will be made available to the public on an ongoing basis," according to a written statement obtained by CNN.
"We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside. Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process."
CREW's executive director, Melanie Sloan, issued a statement saying, "The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise. The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to keep secret the identities of those who visited the White House. In contrast, the Obama administration — by putting visitor records on the White House web site — will have the most open White House in history."
CREW describes itself as "dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in government and public life by targeting government officials — regardless of party affiliation — who sacrifice the common good to special interests."
The White House policy laid out in the document on CREW's Web site says the administration will not release records that would threaten national security or relate to purely personal guests of the Obama or Biden families. The administration will also withhold those related to "a small group of particularly sensitive meetings" such as potential Supreme Court nominees, butwill disclose each month how many such meetings there were, and will "release such records once they are no longer sensitive."
Visitor records for Vice President Biden at his residence can not be collected in identifical format because different systems are in place, but Biden's office will release guest lists for official events, the document says.
As for logs of visitors before September 15, "the White House will respond voluntarily to individual requests," the document says, "but only if the requests are reasonable, narrow, and specific."
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/04/white-house-to-release-logs-after-settlement-interest-group/#more-67282